Maui Police Arrest Yet Another Mayoral Candidate

Beau Hawkes makes his living at Maui Wowie, which sells bongs made from bamboo (pictured above), but that’s not why Maui Police arrested him on Wednesday, July 23. No, a Maui cop tased Hawkes and then arrested him for a variety of traffic offenses, including but not limited to driving without license plates and the ever-popular resisting arrest. The Maui Newsran a detailed story today on the arrest that includes a lot of juicy quotes from Hawkes himself; MauiWatch posted a bystander’s video of Hawkes’ arrest.

Hawkes is the second of the six candidates still the mayor’s race to be arrested in the weeks prior to the Aug. 9 Hawaii Primary Election (the other one, Nelson Waikiki, is still in jail on a $100,000 cash only warrant stemming from his allegedly violating conditions for his earlier release from prison for fraud). This means that–so far–the Maui Police Department has arrested 40 percent of the individuals currently running against Mayor Alan Arakawa.

So is Maui County becoming like Russia, or some banana republic? So far, candidates Alana Kay, Orion Kopelman and Tamara Paltin have managed to maintain their freedom, but how long will that last?

I’m being facetious, of course. Unless another candidate gets arrested, in which case, damn.

Anthony Pignataro has been a journalist since 1996. He started work as MauiTime's Editor in 2003, took a couple years off starting in 2008, then returned to the staff in 2011. He's the author of "Stealing Cars With The Pros," a 2013 collection of his journalism and the Maui novels "Small Island" (2011) and "The Dead Season" (2012)–all of which were published by Event Horizon Press. In 2014, his one-act play "War Stories" won second place in the Maui Fringe Festival.